Poetical Poltergeist
Precise and cold hearted
Thank God this admin is incomptetent.
But not....
Quite a conundrum we may find ourselves in.
But not....
Quite a conundrum we may find ourselves in.
Official War With Iran Thread
- Thread starter Berniewood Hogan
- Start date
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
The Hill
21 hrs ·
“There is always a chance. Do I want to? No, I’d rather not. But there’s always a chance.”
About this website
THEHILL.COM
Trump says there's 'a chance' US takes military action against Iran
President Trump said Wednesday that there is "a chance" the U.S. military will take action against Iran, after a series of escalations between the two countries in recent weeks.
21 hrs ·
“There is always a chance. Do I want to? No, I’d rather not. But there’s always a chance.”
About this website
THEHILL.COM
Trump says there's 'a chance' US takes military action against Iran
President Trump said Wednesday that there is "a chance" the U.S. military will take action against Iran, after a series of escalations between the two countries in recent weeks.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
The Hill
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham has broken with President Trump, lending support to over 20 bipartisan resolutions designed to block Trump's emergency arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies: “The fact that Lindsey is leading the resolution tells you that things are shifting inside the Republican caucus."
About this website
THEHILL.COM
Graham breaks with Trump, joins bipartisan push to block Trump emergency arms sales to Saudi Arabia
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham has broken with President Trump, lending support to over 20 bipartisan resolutions designed to block Trump's emergency arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies: “The fact that Lindsey is leading the resolution tells you that things are shifting inside the Republican caucus."
About this website
THEHILL.COM
Graham breaks with Trump, joins bipartisan push to block Trump emergency arms sales to Saudi Arabia
Jhoon
Spontaneous Mishaps and Hijinks
Do they have 67?The Hill
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham has broken with President Trump, lending support to over 20 bipartisan resolutions designed to block Trump's emergency arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies: “The fact that Lindsey is leading the resolution tells you that things are shifting inside the Republican caucus."
About this website
THEHILL.COM
Graham breaks with Trump, joins bipartisan push to block Trump emergency arms sales to Saudi Arabia
Jhoon
Spontaneous Mishaps and Hijinks
Do they have 67?The Hill
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham has broken with President Trump, lending support to over 20 bipartisan resolutions designed to block Trump's emergency arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies: “The fact that Lindsey is leading the resolution tells you that things are shifting inside the Republican caucus."
About this website
THEHILL.COM
Graham breaks with Trump, joins bipartisan push to block Trump emergency arms sales to Saudi Arabia
Venezuelans’ Latest Woe: Gas Lines That Last for Days on End
LATIN AMERICA
Venezuelans’ Latest Woe: Gas Lines That Last for Days on End
Despite vast crude reserves, residents brave endless waits at risk of criminal attack to get gasoline
People lining up with their vehicles as they wait to get gas at a fuel station in Cabimas, Venezuela, last month. Some lines stretch for miles. RODRIGO ABD/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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- TEXT
Maolis Castro and
Ryan Dube
June 10, 2019 5:30 a.m. ET
CARACAS, Venezuela—Teresa Aray hunkered down in her car at nightfall recently, one of hundreds of motorists waiting for gasoline in a mileslong line in the eastern city of Puerto Ordaz.
Ms. Aray had locked her doors and hidden her cellphone and keys. She was barely able to sleep, fearing rampant street crime. Other drivers gripped rocks and pipes for protection, in one further indication that Venezuela, once a great oil power, has descended into chaos.
Blocked MarketSanctions have all but shut down Venezuela'ssales to the U.S., once its biggest market.U.S. imports of crude oil from VenezuelaSource: U.S. Energy Information Administration
.barrels2015’16’17’18’1905,00010,00015,00020,00025,00030,00035,000
Despite having the world’s largest crude reserves, the country is running out of fuel. An already devastating humanitarian crisis risks becoming much worse as the oil industry crumbles and U.S. sanctions targeting Caracas’s cash-strapped authoritarian regime kick in.
For Ms. Aray, a 36-year-old street vendor, leaving the line wasn’t an option. She needed to fill up so she could transport her husband, who is unable to walk after taking a bullet during a carjacking 13 years earlier. After about 24 hours in line, she finally was able to get some gas. .
Andrés Quintero, left, and Fermín Pérez resting on top of Mr. Pérez's car as they waited in line for over 20 hours to fill their tanks with gas in Cabimas. PHOTO: RODRIGO ABD/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“It’s been difficult with my husband in the wheelchair,” said Ms. Aray, exhausted after the ordeal. “I had to find someone to stay with him because I had to sleep in this line.”
Fuel shortages have been common in part of Venezuela for years, as mismanagement and corruption left the gas-guzzling nation’s oil industry in decay. In the past, the shortfalls mainly affected western border regions, where bootleggers earn a hefty profit smuggling Venezuelan fuel—which is practically free because of state subsidies—into neighboring Colombia at international prices.
In recent weeks those shortages have spread across much of Venezuela, with winding lines stretching for miles at some gas stations.
'Walking Backwards': One Woman's Journey in Venezuela
Maria Planchart once lived comfortably in Caracas and had aspirations of being a lawyer. In this WSJ Films documentary, we follow her struggle to feed her family.
The scarcity has forced people to skip work and take their children out of school as they wait up to a week for their turn at the pump. Farmers aren’t able to deliver produce to cities, and they warn that food shortages will worsen. Some drivers are hoarding gasoline at home despite the dangers of storing fuel.
“There is a total paralysis,” said Paul Márquez, the head of a ranchers association in western Zulia state. “We’re in a complicated situation and practically spending all of our time at stations waiting for fuel.”
Fixing the scarcity won’t be easy. The country’s refineries have long been crippled by a lack of investment and dwindling oil production. The Paraguaná refinery complex, one of the world’s largest, is operating at about 10% capacity, said Antero Alvarado, an energy expert at Caracas-based consulting firm GasEnergy Latin America.
Depleted OutputVenezuela is turning out less crude than atany time in the last four decades.Venezuela's oil productionSources: Baptista; PdVSA and EcoanalíticaNote: 2019 data through April
.million barrels a day1980’902000’100.00.51.01.52.02.53.03.5
Crude production fell to 768,000 barrels a day in April, according to the latest figures published by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, down from a daily peak of more than 3 million barrels a day in the late 1990s. That means fewer petrodollars for the state to buy the blending components necessary to produce gasoline.
Exacerbating Venezuela’s problems are U.S. sanctions announced in January to force President Nicolás Maduro from power. The sanctions on state-owned oil giant Petróleos de Venezuela have crippled the country’s ability to buy additives and import fuels from the U.S., where companies are barred from doing business with Caracas.
The Trump administration has pressured other countries to stop trading with Venezuela as it tries to choke off oil revenue. A government official in India’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas said purchases of Venezuelan crude ended after pressure from the U.S. India had become the biggest cash-paying customer of Venezuelan crude since the U.S. stopped buying it.
People pushing a car into a station after a long wait last month in the town of Acarigua, in the Venezuelan state of Portuguesa. PHOTO: MARVIN RECINOS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Mr. Maduro has blamed the recent shortages on sabotage, without providing evidence. He has talked in the past about raising Venezuelan gas prices to market levels, but abandoned those plans because they posed a political risk in a country where people see cheap gasoline as a right.
Instead, the regime is now rationing gasoline, limiting drivers to eight gallons a week in some states. In two states, Bolívar and Monagas, authorities are restricting sales to particular days, based on the license plate numbers of cars.
“This is not a solution,” said Miguel Herrera, 41, an accountant in Puerto Ordaz who said he was unable to take his two sons to school or visit his cancer-stricken mother for lack of fuel. “Many families are already suffering. It’s impossible to get around without gasoline.”
In Maracaibo, the country’s oil capital in the far west, Adolfo Solórzano borrowed fuel from a neighbor just to make it to the end of a long gas line. Waiting for hours, he sought relief from sweltering heat under a tree.
“We don’t even think about food,” he said. “What I want is gasoline because I can’t keep missing work.”
Cars lined up for gas in Valencia, Venezuela. The country has the world’s largest crude reserves but gas supplies have been crippled by mismanagement and U.S. sanctions. PHOTO: MARVIN RECINOS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Venezuelans with dollars skip lines by paying a high markup at some filling stations, all of which are state-owned. Foreign currency also buys fuel on the black market; in the western state of Táchira, eight gallons of gas is going for about $36—a fortune for most Venezuelans.
José Correa, 28, a food-delivery driver in Táchira, had no option recently but to wait six days for fuel.
He said the best way to withstand the slog in line is with friends and family. They watch over each other, he said, allowing members of the group to briefly step away to get food or use the bathroom without losing their spot.
Still, he said, by the third day he started to feel hopeless. His two young children missed him. At night, gunmen robbed waiting motorists.
After finally getting some gas, Mr. Correa made his deliveries. But because he was only allowed to fill a fifth of his truck’s tank, he was back in line two days later.
“It’s an absurd situation,” he said. “This is turning into a perverse and tedious routine.”
A line-up in Maracaibo, Venezuela PHOTO: ISAAC URRUTIA/REUTERS
— María Ramírez in Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela, Sheyla Urdaneta in Maracaibo, Venezuela, and Krishna Pokharel in New Delhi, India, contributed to this article.
Write to Ryan Dube at ryan.dube@dowjones.com
they got gas....and have gas shortages
@88m3 @dtownreppin214
@88m3 @dtownreppin214
Iran-linked terrorists caught stockpiling explosives in north-west London
Hezbollah fighters parade in Lebanon in 2010 Credit: Hussein Malla/AP
Terrorists linked to Iran were caught stockpiling tonnes of explosive materials on the outskirts of London in a secret British bomb factory, The Telegraph can reveal.
Radicals linked to Hizbollah, the Lebanese militant group, stashed thousands of disposable ice packs containing ammonium nitrate - a common ingredient in homemade bombs.
The plot was uncovered by MI5 and the Metropolitan Police in the autumn of 2015, just months after the UK signed up to the Iran nuclear deal. Three metric tonnes of ammonium nitrate was discovered - more than was used in the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people and damaged hundreds of buildings.
Police raided four properties in north-west London - three businesses and a home - and a man in his 40s was arrested on suspicion of plotting terrorism.
The man was eventually released without charge. Well-placed sources said the plot had been disrupted by a covert intelligence operation rather than seeking a prosecution.
The discovery was so serious that David Cameron and Theresa May, then the prime minister and home secretary, were personally briefed on what had been found.
Yet for years the nefarious activity has been kept hidden from the public, including MPs who were debating whether to fully ban Hizbollah, until now.
It raises questions about whether senior UK government figures chose not to reveal the plot in part because they were invested in keeping the Iran nuclear deal afloat.
The disclosure follows a three-month investigation by The Telegraph in which more than 30 current and former officials in Britain, America and Cyprus were approached and court documents were obtained.
One well-placed source described the plot as “proper organised terrorism”, while another said enough explosive materials were stored to do “a lot of damage”.
Palestinian militants from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine walk next to a poster of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah during an anti-Israel rally Credit: WAEL HAMZEH/EPA-EFE/REX
Ben Wallace, the security minister, said: “The Security Service and police work tirelessly to keep the public safe from a host of national security threats. Necessarily, their efforts and success will often go unseen.”
The Telegraph understands the discovery followed a tip-off from a foreign government. To understand what they were facing, agents from MI5 and officers from Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command launched a covert operation.
It became clear, according to well-placed sources, that the UK storage was not in isolation but part of an international Hizbollah plot to lay the groundwork for future attacks.
The group had previously been caught storing ice packs in Thailand. And in 2017, two years after the London bust, a New York Hizbollah member would appear to seek out a foreign ice pack manufacturer.
Why ice packs?
Ice packs provide the perfect cover, according to sources - seemingly harmless and easy to transport. Proving beyond doubt they were purchased for terrorism was tricky.
But the most relevant case was in Cyprus, where a startlingly similar plot had been busted just months before the discovery in London. There, a 26-year-old man called Hussein Bassam Abdallah, a dual Lebanese and Canadian national, was caught caching more than 65,000 ice packs in a basement. During interrogation he admitted to being a member of Hizbollah’s military wing, saying he had once been trained to use an AK47 assault rifle.
Abdallah said the 8.2 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored was for terrorist attacks. He pleaded guilty and was given a six-year prison sentence in June 2015.
In Abdallah’s luggage police found two photocopies of a forged British passport. Cypriot police say they were not the foreign government agency that tipped Britain off to the London cell.
But they did offer assistance when made aware of the UK case, meeting their British counterparts and sharing reports on what they had uncovered.
MI5's intelligence investigation is understood to have lasted months. The aim was both to disrupt the plot but also get a clearer picture what Hizbollah was up to.
Such investigations can involve everything from eavesdropping on calls to deploying covert sources and trying to turn suspects.
The exact methods used in this case are unknown. Soon conclusions begun to emerge. The plot was at an early stage. It amounted to pre-planning. No target had been selected and no attack was imminent.
Well-placed sources said there was no evidence Britain itself would have been the target. And the ammonium nitrate remained concealed in its ice packs, rather than removed and mixed - a much more advanced and dangerous state. On September 30, the Met made their move.
Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon's militant Shiite movement Hezbollah, gives a televised address Credit: AFP
Officers used search warrants to raid four properties in north-west London - three businesses and one residential address. That same day a man in his 40s was arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences under Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006. Neither his name nor his nationality have been disclosed.
His was the only arrest, although sources told The Telegraph at least two people were involved. The man was released on bail. Eventually a decision was taken not to bring charges.
The exact reasons why remain unclear, but it is understood investigators were confident they had disrupted the plot and gained useful information about Hizbollah’s activities in Britain and overseas.
A UK intelligence source said: “MI5 worked independently and closely with international partners to disrupt the threat of malign intent from Iran and its proxies in the UK.”
The decision not to inform the public of the discovery, despite a major debate with Britain’s closest ally America about the success of the Iran nuclear deal, will raise eyebrows.
Keeping MPs in the dark amid a fierce debate about whether to designate the entire of Hezbollah a terrorist group - rather than just its militant wing - will also be questioned.
The US labelled the entire group a terrorist organisation in the 1990s. But in Britain, only its armed wing was banned. The set-up had led senior British counter-terrorism figures to believe there was some form of understanding that Hizbollah would not target the UK directly.
Hizbollah was only added to the banned terrorist group list in its entirety in February 2019 - more than three years after the plot was uncovered.
A spokesman for the press department of the Iranian Embassy in London said: "Iran has categorically rejected time and again any type of terrorism and extremism, has been victim of terrorism against its innocent people, and is in the forefront fighting this inhuman phenomenon.
"Any attempt to link Iran to terrorism, by claims from unknown sources, is totally rejected."
@ADevilYouKhow @wire28 @dtownreppin214 @88m3
@DonKnock @dza @wire28 @BigMoneyGrip @Dameon Farrow @VR Tripper @re'up @Blackfyre @Cali_livin @NY's #1 Draft Pick
Iran-linked terrorists caught stockpiling explosives in north-west London
Hezbollah fighters parade in Lebanon in 2010 Credit: Hussein Malla/AP
- Ben Riley-Smith, US Editor
Terrorists linked to Iran were caught stockpiling tonnes of explosive materials on the outskirts of London in a secret British bomb factory, The Telegraph can reveal.
Radicals linked to Hizbollah, the Lebanese militant group, stashed thousands of disposable ice packs containing ammonium nitrate - a common ingredient in homemade bombs.
The plot was uncovered by MI5 and the Metropolitan Police in the autumn of 2015, just months after the UK signed up to the Iran nuclear deal. Three metric tonnes of ammonium nitrate was discovered - more than was used in the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people and damaged hundreds of buildings.
Police raided four properties in north-west London - three businesses and a home - and a man in his 40s was arrested on suspicion of plotting terrorism.
The man was eventually released without charge. Well-placed sources said the plot had been disrupted by a covert intelligence operation rather than seeking a prosecution.
The discovery was so serious that David Cameron and Theresa May, then the prime minister and home secretary, were personally briefed on what had been found.
Yet for years the nefarious activity has been kept hidden from the public, including MPs who were debating whether to fully ban Hizbollah, until now.
It raises questions about whether senior UK government figures chose not to reveal the plot in part because they were invested in keeping the Iran nuclear deal afloat.
The disclosure follows a three-month investigation by The Telegraph in which more than 30 current and former officials in Britain, America and Cyprus were approached and court documents were obtained.
One well-placed source described the plot as “proper organised terrorism”, while another said enough explosive materials were stored to do “a lot of damage”.
Palestinian militants from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine walk next to a poster of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah during an anti-Israel rally Credit: WAEL HAMZEH/EPA-EFE/REX
Ben Wallace, the security minister, said: “The Security Service and police work tirelessly to keep the public safe from a host of national security threats. Necessarily, their efforts and success will often go unseen.”
The Telegraph understands the discovery followed a tip-off from a foreign government. To understand what they were facing, agents from MI5 and officers from Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command launched a covert operation.
It became clear, according to well-placed sources, that the UK storage was not in isolation but part of an international Hizbollah plot to lay the groundwork for future attacks.
The group had previously been caught storing ice packs in Thailand. And in 2017, two years after the London bust, a New York Hizbollah member would appear to seek out a foreign ice pack manufacturer.
Why ice packs?
Ice packs provide the perfect cover, according to sources - seemingly harmless and easy to transport. Proving beyond doubt they were purchased for terrorism was tricky.
But the most relevant case was in Cyprus, where a startlingly similar plot had been busted just months before the discovery in London. There, a 26-year-old man called Hussein Bassam Abdallah, a dual Lebanese and Canadian national, was caught caching more than 65,000 ice packs in a basement. During interrogation he admitted to being a member of Hizbollah’s military wing, saying he had once been trained to use an AK47 assault rifle.
Abdallah said the 8.2 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored was for terrorist attacks. He pleaded guilty and was given a six-year prison sentence in June 2015.
In Abdallah’s luggage police found two photocopies of a forged British passport. Cypriot police say they were not the foreign government agency that tipped Britain off to the London cell.
But they did offer assistance when made aware of the UK case, meeting their British counterparts and sharing reports on what they had uncovered.
MI5's intelligence investigation is understood to have lasted months. The aim was both to disrupt the plot but also get a clearer picture what Hizbollah was up to.
Such investigations can involve everything from eavesdropping on calls to deploying covert sources and trying to turn suspects.
The exact methods used in this case are unknown. Soon conclusions begun to emerge. The plot was at an early stage. It amounted to pre-planning. No target had been selected and no attack was imminent.
Well-placed sources said there was no evidence Britain itself would have been the target. And the ammonium nitrate remained concealed in its ice packs, rather than removed and mixed - a much more advanced and dangerous state. On September 30, the Met made their move.
Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon's militant Shiite movement Hezbollah, gives a televised address Credit: AFP
Officers used search warrants to raid four properties in north-west London - three businesses and one residential address. That same day a man in his 40s was arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences under Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006. Neither his name nor his nationality have been disclosed.
His was the only arrest, although sources told The Telegraph at least two people were involved. The man was released on bail. Eventually a decision was taken not to bring charges.
The exact reasons why remain unclear, but it is understood investigators were confident they had disrupted the plot and gained useful information about Hizbollah’s activities in Britain and overseas.
A UK intelligence source said: “MI5 worked independently and closely with international partners to disrupt the threat of malign intent from Iran and its proxies in the UK.”
The decision not to inform the public of the discovery, despite a major debate with Britain’s closest ally America about the success of the Iran nuclear deal, will raise eyebrows.
Keeping MPs in the dark amid a fierce debate about whether to designate the entire of Hezbollah a terrorist group - rather than just its militant wing - will also be questioned.
The US labelled the entire group a terrorist organisation in the 1990s. But in Britain, only its armed wing was banned. The set-up had led senior British counter-terrorism figures to believe there was some form of understanding that Hizbollah would not target the UK directly.
Hizbollah was only added to the banned terrorist group list in its entirety in February 2019 - more than three years after the plot was uncovered.
A spokesman for the press department of the Iranian Embassy in London said: "Iran has categorically rejected time and again any type of terrorism and extremism, has been victim of terrorism against its innocent people, and is in the forefront fighting this inhuman phenomenon.
"Any attempt to link Iran to terrorism, by claims from unknown sources, is totally rejected."
@ADevilYouKhow @wire28 @dtownreppin214 @88m3
@DonKnock @dza @wire28 @BigMoneyGrip @Dameon Farrow @VR Tripper @re'up @Blackfyre @Cali_livin @NY's #1 Draft Pick
WOW
Boris Johnson and Saddiq Khan didnt know
Boris Johnson and Saddiq Khan didnt know
WOW
Boris Johnson and Saddiq Khan didnt know
Boris Johnson and Saddiq Khan didnt know
Poetical Poltergeist
Precise and cold hearted
This thread got Napped